posted August 11,
2002 05:31 PM
Offhand, I would say no. I'm not familiar with all the titles, but just
going from the inker credits, it looks like those stories are all or
mostly all from prior to 1981, and that's when the article says DC started
producing the "extra" stories for foreign markets.

Of course, they MIGHT have been producing SOME KIND of foreign material
even earlier, but I'd bet that what you had listed above was strictly
reprints of the American comics.

Before jumping ahead to the ending of Superman 314, I hope
you'll indulge me in my longwinded posts on Martin Pasko's career, as I
jump back in time to review ealier works.

Before actually getting to the work, though, I'm going to prolong the
agony even further by quoting from Pasko himself in two different sources
(be patient).

Or should I say the two Martin Paskos? The first is from Martin Pasko
no. 1., "Metropolis Mailbag" (s-826) in issue 240, commenting on the story
from 235. That one, "Sinister Scream of the Devil's Harp," was yet another
chapter in the Super-Sandman Saga by O'Neil/Swan/Anderson--although the
sand-thing's part in that story was brief. While Pesky's comments are
insightful in regards to the O'Neil Superman of that period (and worth
quoting just for that reason), they also will prove intriguing as we
examine Pasko's own version of Superman.

quote:Dear Editor:

Just because a device is old, it is not necessarily bad. Denny O'Neil
is proving that in Superman. In the "old days," a lot of
hackneyed story devices were standard fare, but they were handled poorly
to boot. The reader had the right to expect, as long as the crew wasn't
going to be a particularly innovative, that what familiar techniques and
approaches were used were done well. In # 235, O'Neil is
proving that old gimmicks can be fun, but there's still
something wrong.

Superman 235, although no minor classic, was enjoyable. The
"old" Superman is still in our memories enough to make a
favorable comparison possible. How "Sinister Scream of the Devil's Harp"
(love that title!) might have been handled in lesser hands looms large
in our collective imaginations. Nyxly, or Pan, would have received his
super-powers some other way than stealing them from Superman, although
heaven knows the gimmick's been used before. The
I-challenge-Superman-to-a-duel bit is really quite dusty, too, but it
worked here, largely because of the presence of the sand-thing (even
though, as you'll see later, that's what's really bugging me!).

The Clark Kent-the-coward characterization, so old it's become, in
some trivia aficionado circles, an American idiom, is very tired. There
is no conceivable reason why Kent should be allowed to grovel at Morgan
Edge's feet. Certainly he is a formidable figure, but it might be more
interesting if you allowed Kent to demonstrate, in subtle quips and
gestures, his very real contempt for the man. Still, how it might have
been played is painful to think of. I envision Kent breaking out
(simulated, of course--he's Superman!) in a cold sweat every time Edge
looks at him. The point is this: Denny's fresh touch on old techniques
may be acceptable in the case of # 235, but it's not advisable to
continue it. You have psyched the readers to expect something really
different. Now deliver.

That sand-thing as a "substitute weakness" for Kryptonite is foolish.
Unless the story hinges directly around a confrontation between it and
Superman, it looks pretty stupid to have that thing moving in and out of
every story at just the right time, for no other reason that that you've
given up Kryptonite. The sand-thing was not the focus of the story;
therefore, it only served to detract, not enhance. Its acting as
Superman's savior in the story's conclusion was also disastrous, if you
go by Denny's own philosophies on the value of heroics in the
stereotyped-hero comic magazine sense. Success is dependent upon the
hero himself resolving it. The sand-thing is a beautifully eerie
creation which has great potential as a recurring villain, hero,
middle-of-the-roadeer, or something--but it won't work in every
story!

Martin Pasko, Clifton N.J.

It's worth noting Pasko's comments on the CK character. I don't think
Marty can take credit for inventing these ideas. They were in the air at
the time and Schwartz clearly encouraged his troops to expand on the
variety of emotion that Clark displayed. Kent does get upset with Morgan
Edge--but as Edge's character softens (because there were two Morgan
Edges), that contempt shifts to Steve Lombard. Through the ironic device
(a part of Superman since day one) we get to see Clark (who we know to be
Superman) using his powers for personal reasons. In the case of Lombard,
this results in CK turning the tables on Steve's attempts to humilate
"Clarkie."

The second extended quote is from the text page, "The Story Behind the
Story" (C-136), from First Issue Special(Dr. Fate) no. 9, December,
1975. This comic featured a re-defining tale of "dr. fate" (the only title
provided for the story), by Martin Pasko and Walt Simonson, edited by
Gerry Conway. All of the developments in the character of Fate, Kent, and
Inza, which later writers capitalized on, were here for the first time in
this story--the interdependency of Inza and Kent, the Fate/Kent character
split, the use of the ankh symbol to represent Fate's magicks, Inza's
anger from a life of being imprisoned in a window-less tower, the
longevity of both characters, etc.

On the issue's text page, each creator provides his own profile. Artist
Simonson's profile is just a self-portrait (under which he prints, "...AND
NOW MY GREATEST SECRET--MY SIGNATURE IS REALLY...A DINOSAUR"). But writer
Pasko provides an inventive back-story--whether any of it is true is open
to debate--

quote:Martin Pasko was born in August, 1953, in Montreal, Quebec. Shortly
thereafter he was placed in a rocketship and sent to Clifton, New Jersey
just as all of Quebec, and portions of Ontario disappeared through a
time-warp in the the 1930's.

In Clifton, the rocketship containing young Martin, then known as
Jean-Claude Rochefort, was found by a kindly couple named the Paskos.
Their names were not Jonathon and Martha. That's another story.

They adopted the child and named him Martin. Shortly afterward, the
child displayed strange and wonderful abilities, far beyond those of
mortal Canadians. For example, he possessed the ability to put two words
together in sequence by the age of 12. It was not until he was 14,
however, that he was able to put together two words in sequence that
meant anything. Whereupon he displayed the uncanny ability to insult any
comic book editor at a distance of approximately 15 miles, roughly the
distance between Clifton and the offices of National Periodicals. A man
named Julius Schwartz began to print these letters in his comic books
and insult young Martin in turn. He was known at that time as "Pesky
Pasko."

The real Martin Pasko was killed in an automobile accident in 1971.
Shortly thereafter, a young writer signing that name to his work began
to write comic books for a horror outfit whose name began with a "W."
The stories were supposed to be horrors, not the publishing company.
This issue is still being debated. Later, this writer gravitated to
other companies, eventually writing for National, beginning with Joe
Orlando and later for Julius Schwartz, who to this day confuses him with
the young letter-writer. Recently, clues to the death of the real Martin
Pasko, heretofore a well-kept secret, have begun to surface in several
of the writings bearing the impostor's name. For example, in this
issue's Doctor Fate, hold page 13 up to the mirror with bottom
right-hand corner of the 3rd panel pointing in the direction of
Cleveland, Ohio, and you'll discover that the marks on Doctor Fate's
helmet, which you thought were just more of Walt Simonson's funny
shading-effects, actually spell out the words, "I buried Paul," in
Sanskrit.

The new Martin Pasko currently lives in New York City, and is looking
for a way to escape. He is a novelist, a screenwriter, and sporadically
unemployed. When asked why such incredible things happen to him, he
thought for a moment before replying.

Pasko's assignments in the mid-seventies were many and varied. He
contributed stories for lots of different DC titles--back-up tales,
anthology stories, works for one-shots or short-lived series or dying
series. He was a hired-gun, working wherever he was needed.

On the first issue of Kobra he was one of three different
writers--scripting over the plots of Jack Kirby and Steve Sherman. That
issue was a mixed bag of creative talents with pencil art by both Kirby
and Pablo Marcos, and inks by D. Bruce Berry and Marcos. Art-wise the book
didn't fare much better for the rest of its short life, with a rotating
list of artists who if they stayed for two issues would be counted as
having a long run. In fact, by issue 5 (after being prematurely pronounced
dead as of issue 3) it was already starting a "new direction" (the seventh
issue was the last).

As a consequence of all this inconstant direction, Kobra has been
much-maligned as a character. But he remains one of my favourite villains
of the seventies. And much of that is thanks to Pasko who wrote
interesting characters and created a dramatic tension in the stories.

Pasko's editor on this, and on other works was Gerry Conway. When not
editing Pasko, Conway might be found alternating with Pasko on writing. On
Pasko's short stint as Freedom Fighters writer, Conway actually
fills in with the second issue, before Pasko returns in the third. On
issue 18 of DC Super-Stars Conway and Pasko write different
chapters of a lengthy Deadman and Phantom Stranger story.

Pasko would be called into script over the plots of other writers, as
well, as with the three-part 1976 JLA-JSA crossover (issues 135 to 137)
where Marty provides dialogue for ENB's plot. Bridwell was brought in to
plot this mammoth, because he was about the only guy who knew all the
players which included many long extinct Fawcett heroes and villains.

But I'd say that the Wonder Woman comics were the first place
where Pesky truly distinguished himself. He began his run on that book
writing the last bunch of the twelve labours of Wonder Woman (which were
overseen by different JLA members, including the Phantom Stranger),
writing for the then WW editor Julie Schwartz.

From these stories, Pasko moved on to make the character his own.
Constructing his own version of WW/Diana Prince and her newly revived
boyfriend, Steve Trevor (now with a black dye-job and calling himself
Steve Howard) Pasko developed a mature loving relationship between these
two. Where others before him had failed to realize a well-rounded and
admirable Steve Trevor, Pasko gave us a smart, funny, and distinguished
individual who was Diana's equal.

WW 226 & 227 (Oct-Nov '76 & Dec-Jan '76-'77) featured a
remarkable character-driven two part tale that remains to this day one of
my favourite Wonder Woman stories of all time. Finally it seemed the
character was on the right track with the right scripter. True, the art
horribly inked by Vince Colletta over Jose Delbo's pencils, was not worthy
of the story--but you can't have everything. And then with the very next
issue--228--the title dove into an alternate universe (laughingly called
"Earth 2") in order to tie it in with the TV show. Since any hack could
have written this TV comic without making much of a difference in the
quality of story, Pasko's run was undistinguished from here on, and he
only stuck it out for a handful of issues before bowing out as of issue
232.

That sand-thing as a "substitute weakness" for Kryptonite is
foolish. Unless the story hinges directly around a confrontation between
it and Superman, it looks pretty stupid to have that thing moving in and
out of every story...

I was looking at an old copy of The Comic Reader this morning,
from the early 80s, and in there someone was complaining how with the
death of anthology titles and the like, young artists with swipe files
were being unleashed on unsuspecting readers, doing feature work instead
of paying their dues before getting good enough to do the features.

The same could be said for writers. If anything the situation has
gotten worse, but long ago in the early seventies there were still
anthology titles and back-up features. This is where writers and artists
learned the craft (it's interesting that of the writers who were dominant
in the seventies, about the only who comes to mind who didn't pay these
dues was Maggin, he got big feature work even before he established
himself as a back-up writer--and in the end he quit (Superman) because of
a debacle over a back-up story).

Pasko had the fortune to come into the industry when anthologies and
back-ups were still part of the scene. But he also had the misfortune to
come in when comics, especially DCs, were struggling to find their market.
Most of the books Martin worked on were either failures or going through
radical change.

And the art? With so many pros leaving the mainstream, the art could be
quite awful.

The one exception to this was probably Superman. The Superman character
was still strong enough to capture a large share of the dwindling newstand
market. Relative to the other DC titles, the quality on Superman was still
strong.

So to make it as a feature writer for Superman, Martin Pasko had to
prove himself first on the back-ups. But while most of these seem like
throwaway yarns--the accumulation of continuity would provide a foundation
for Pasko's later feature work on the character.

"The Pizzeria Peril" (from Superman 277, art by Swan &
Giacoia), a Private Life of Clark Kent 6 pager, is most notable for
re-introducing Kaye Daye, celebrated mystery novelist and member in good
standing of the Gotham City Mystery Analysts. What's this GCMA author
doing in a Clark Kent story? (apparently not visiting a fellow member of
the GCMA--Clark's membership in that illustrious group is not mentioned
here)--she's visiting her nephew, Steve Lombard! And looking a bit aged
since her last appearance in the sixties (Michael Golden would later
restore her youth in a Batman Family story). Meanwhile Steve
Lombard has switched digs to room with Clark (afraid his aunt will be
shocked by the wild parties at his bachelor pad--and a colorist's error
that shows a bit more female skin than Curt Swan probably intended makes
it seem like Lombard's soirees are much more hedonistic than the Comics
Code would Approve).

"The Last Headline!" (issue 280, Swan/Blaisdell art, 6 pages) almost
induced heart failure when it announced the retirement of Perry White, who
had achieved the mandatory age of 65. Thankfully a gathering of Daily
Planet cast members signed a petition, and Clark showed some chutzpah by
taping a piece screened by Morgan Edge, pleading for Perry's job. The
fifth page last panel allows for a big group shot of that cast (Morgan,
Jimmy, Lois, Steve, Lola, Melba Manton, Miss Conway, and three other
familiar faces I can't put a name to).

282 is the issue that has the first really significant story (as we
will see in Part II of Pesky's Progress). The usual 6 pages, illoed by
Ernie Chua, "The Loneliest Man in the Universe" is a Fabulous World of
Krypton untold story of Superman's native planet.

In this, as with most, there's a framing device. Superman and Supergirl
are on a Florida beach discussing her future. She's thinking of hanging up
the cape and pursuing an ordinary life. Superman sits his cousin down and
tells her a parable that's supposed to help her with her problems (I don't
see how, though).

500 years ago on Krypton people went to the Scarlet Jungle to find
rondors, smelly (rhinoceros-like) beasts whose horns gave off a natural
healing radiation that would cure almost any ill. As such, these beasts
were protected by law. However, one Kryptonian scientist, Nam-Ek, defied
the law and slaughtered two rondors for their horns from which he made a
potion. Drinking the potion made Nam-Ek truly immortal, invincible to all
harm. It also gave him the horn, hide, and foul odour of a rondor beast.
An outsider among the Kryptonian people, Nam-Ek lived for centuries, a
virtual recluse. Almost mad from the lack of human companionship, Nam-Ek
returned to the Scarlet Jungle and the rondors in an effort to seek a cure
to his curse of immortality, but before he could make good on this bid for
release from interminable life, the world came to an end. Krypton
exploded, yet Nam-Ek remained unharmed and floating in the ether. "And
that's when he began to cry...and they say that somewhere in space...he is
crying still..."

Around this point, the reader starts to say "hey wait, if Krypton blew
up, how does Superman know all this?" But thankfully, Kara asks the
question for us. Superman's answer is merely, "Oh--well...that's another
story!"

The TPLOCK 6 page Swan/Oksner effort in 285 ("The Kid with the Million
Dollar Smile!") is unimportant (a story about a child star based on a
child star of the time). 286 has another TFWOK untold story
(Swan/Blaisdell, 6 pages), concerning the infancy of Kal-El and a legend
of the Shedu--an evil demon that possesses children. "Hey, You--with the
Glasses--I Don't Like Your Face!" is a delightful 5 page TPLOCK romp from
292 (the inks by Al Milgrom over Swan are a mixed bag, but may have been
near Anderson level if the printing process had been better), in which
Clark adeptly deals with a hulking loud-mouth in a bar (the hulk is
provoked when Kent dares to order a glass of milk). And "The Tatoo
Switcheroo" is a pedestrian bit of identity switching between Clark and a
ganster, in a TPLOCK story where the biggest crime is what Colletta did to
the Garcia Lopez pencils.

With the shrinking page count, the Superman related back-ups moved
their home to Action Comics for awhile. "Paper Hero!" (issue 465,
Frank McLaughlin over Swan, 5 pages) is a Sporting Life of Steve Lombard
feature which displays the great Pasko gift for dialogue. Some exchanges
in this piece are so grand I'm almost tempted to stretch out this post
even further by quoting the balloons at length. But I'll take pity on my
fellow posters and attempt to briefly relate the best bits.

The story is told from the setting of Lombard's luxurious bachelor digs
where instead of making time with a secretary (as we usually see him
doing) he's attempting to dictate a chapter of his autobiography to said
secretary--Shirley Lavitsky by name. Lavitsky is not your usual Lombard
bimbo, she has a way with language and banters with Steve as he dictates
his story. When Steve switches from talking about a former coach to
talking about encountering some thugs in an underground parking garage,
Shirley pipes up: "Hunh you were talking about this coach--and now the
story's about a coupla two-bit thugs? Where's the dramatic structure?" And
Steve snaps, "What is this? I hire a secretary and instead I get a critic!
This is my book--I tell it my way!"

Finally (for this post, anyhow), Pasko provides a 6 page Close-Up:
Morgan Edge (again by Swan and McLaughlin, in Action 468) which is
indeed memorable. It's a story that has stayed with me for all these years
and makes me mourn for the loss of the Morgan Edge as he once existed (the
sad thing called Morgan Edge from the reboot Superman comics is hardly
worthy of that name).

"My Son, the Orphan!" sparkles on the page with Pasko's language. Again
it's hard to resist quoting all the dialogue, as Morgan encounters his
mother. Although everyone thinks he's an orphan, Morgan Edge (the real
Morgan Edge, not Jack Kirby's intergang stand-in) is actually Morris
Edeltstein, and his mother is Sophie Edeltstein who still works as a
cleaning woman (as she has done for 45 years "I'm happy that way! Why
should I change?"). Ashamed of his past and his name, Morgan Edge has kept
up a disguise all these years, but brought to a realization by his mother,
he gets up to accept his Man of the Year Award at the Broadcasters'
Association ceremony, and relates the truth about himself.

About a time when he was still in the Merchant Marine, and playing a
poker game in a port on the western seaboard. One of the players, a
wealthy man from New Mexico, bet his TV station in Albuquerque, and Morris
beat the gent's heart-royal-flush with a spade-flush. Having done so well
at the table, Edelstein knew it was time to quit.

At this the wealthy gent asks, "Whadja say yore name wuz, boyah?"

"Edeltstein. Why?"

"Figures! Only yore kind would decide to bow out when ya got all o' our
dough."

Morris takes offence, while his adversaries at the table attack him,
but the merchant seaman isn't so easily overcome, and leaves his defeated
opponents on the floor.

At the ceremony, bringing his mother up to share in his success as Man
of the Year, Morgan/Morris leaves his GBS staff stunned by his
revelations. Clark asks Lois, "What difference does it make?" and she
answers, "None, of course--it's just interesting, that's
all..."

So what was so all fired great about Pasko's debut as writer on the
featured Superman stories? Why's India Ink make so much about this
transplanted Canadian who took Elliot Maggin's place?

Well, first it's tempting to despise Pasko because it seems like he did
take Elliot's place (and maybe Cary's, too). But I don't think this is
quite accurate.

It seems like with "Who Took the Super out of Superman?" there were was
already a force for change in place. This change may have even been in the
air even before that story, but that story becomes the lightning rod for
change.

On the one hand, it seems like the writers were pushing for that
change--Maggin and Bates. On the other hand, I have my doubts. I think it
was actually Schwartz lighting a fire under his writers. Pushing for
changes to shake things up a little. "A little" not a lot. Maggin may have
gotten too excited, and Schwartz obviously fought with him. But this
doesn't mean Julie didn't want change. He just wanted measured steady
change.

The "proof" of this is in that after Maggin removed himself, the
changes kept going. Changes that Elliot had a hand in creating, kept going
after he left. It doesn't seem in Julie's character to keep ideas that a
rebel writer instituted. Schwartz would be more likely to dial back on the
changes and push his new writers in a different direction.

Furthermore, it wasn't Pasko who took Maggin's place--it was Gerry
Conway. Gerry Conway proceeds with the changes that Maggin and Bates
wrought (even though the conclusion of the Out of Superman Saga pretended
to put everything back the way it was). He ups the drama by introducing a
newscaster groupie--Terri Cross, a leggy Mary Jane Watson wannabe who
makes the moves on Clark. This gets Lois interested--and Beef Bourguinon
passions erupt.

I haven't done the research--I'm relying on memory--but as I recall
from my reading of comic fan publications, Gerry Conway came over to DC
with the intent to stay, but then left for Marvel again, only to leave
Marvel once more, after another short stint, and come over to DC again.
This being so, I think that Conway may have been intended to stay on
Superman as the permanent scripter. He introduces a bunch of
sub-plots and new characters--more than he can deal with in the handful of
issues he scripted--and then he leaves for Marvel.

My guess is that Pasko and Conway had some already established
association. Pasko worked for Conway when Conway served as editor on some
titles. They worked on stories together. There probably was a
professional, and even a personal, association between the two writers. So
that when Conway realized he would be unable to complete his plans for
Superman, Pasko was tagged as his replacement.

The "proof" of Pasko's successorship to Conway is that he takes up some
of the sub-plots that Gerry left lying around. Conway introduced a
gangland character named Sam Simeon and he introduced Terri Cross. These
two are abandoned. As is the whole mutant conspiracy introduced in 307 -
309--it may be that it was a one-off on Conway's part, a parody of the
X-Men's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, but it seems strange that
mutants Radion and the Protector never appear again. BUT Marty continues
to use Dr. Albert Michaels, and the criminal organization called Skull. He
continues with the heated-up Clark & Lois plot, and he continues with
the continuing--I mean that where continuity was self-contained
(self-contained four parters like the Out of Superman Saga and Karb Brak
tale, that come to a definite end), now events from previous issues lead
into events of following issues without clear conclusions (the basic
Marvel and current DC approach).

But there is a contrast between Conway's and Pasko's methods. One that
is quickly apparent in 305. Where Conway attempts to shake things up with
all new characters and plots, Pasko attempts to integrate old and new, to
bring together elements of long ago with more recent developments. Where
Conway just invents a new villain, Pasko is more likely to redefine an old
villain (just as he and Simonson redefined an old hero in the person of
Dr. Fate).

"The Man Who Toyed with Death!" (in 305, by Swoksner, 17 pages), takes
the amiable white-haired character of Winslow P. Schott who had settled
into a quiet existence with his toys (as seen in Action 432 (Feb.
'74) "Target of the Toy-Men!" story: Bates) and turns his world upside
down as seemingly Superman wrecks the Metropolis Coliseum where the
Toyman's creations are on display. The act of destruction amounts to
destroying the Toyman himself, destroying his children, his world, and
pushes him into homicidal madness as he breaks into the building of the
new Toyman (Jack Nimball), killing the doorman in the prosecution of his
crimes, and then killing Nimball. The use of toys (objects associated with
childhood and fun) makes the murders all the more macabre.

Likewise, Bizarro (the real wrecker of the coliseum), is brought back
to the mis-shapen mockery of Superman that he once was. Instead of a silly
story about a wierd cube-shaped planet (however delightful that might have
been, it's not very useful as part of ongoing Superman continuity), Pesky
Pasko provides a clash between the Man of Steel and his opposite. Bizarro
is made all the more forlorn by the fact that his world has been
destroyed, everything he loves is gone.

Where this two-parter fails is in trying to put everything back the way
it was. Toyman realizes the truth and regrets his crimes. Bizarro realizes
his world is not destroyed, he just got a bad bump on the head.

In 310 (art by Swan & Blaisdell, 17 pages) Pesky decides to bring
back Metallo (whose only other appearance was in [i]Action[i] 252, May,
1959), the only problem is Metallo is dead! John Corben died when he tried
to use a piece of pseudo-Kryptonite to fuel his robotic body (mistaking it
for the real Green K). Roger Corben, the brother, however, is very much
alive and an agent of Skull (set on avenging himself on Superman, who he
blames for his brother's death).

His fellow Skull members, unfortunately, have deliberately set him up
for an accidednt that crushes his body, allowing them to create a new
Metallo (robotic body fuelled by synthetic Kryptonite, human head of Roger
Corben). Meanwhile Dr. Albert Michaels has disappeared, and Lois has come
to Clark's apartment to discuss her plans to leave Metropolis.

The fact is, this romance with Clark is doing her head in. She can't
figure him out. The way he runs out on her, and then turns around and is
this swell guy. And that's not really the point, either. The point is
Clark is the consolation prize. Because she can't have Superman, she's
settled for Clark--which isn't fair to either of them. But before Clark
can talk things out with his love--while Lois is in the bathroom trying to
pull herself together--Kent gets a call from Morgan Edge telling him that
Steve Lombard is hanging from the goal post at the sports arena (captured
by Skull and Metallo). Clark uses his heat vision to fuse the bathroom
door shut, so Lois won't see him change to Superman, then he's flying off
to rescue Lombard.

Handling Skull and Metallo takes longer than he thought (Metallo
presumably self-destructs and dies), and when Superman returns to his
apartment as Clark and releases Lois from the bathroom ("Six hours!! Have
you ever been locked in a bathroom for six hours?"), Lois is in no mood to
talk and walks out on him, slamming the door behind her. (While a robotic
body in the police morgue stirs to life.)

posted August 12,
2002 07:43 PM
>phew< for a while there my last post wasn't showing up on my
screen--thought I'd have to type that all over again (could be this thread
is getting too long to load, though).

Our story: last issue Lois was making plans to leave Metropolis and
Clark...

NOW, in "Plague of the Antibiotic Man (no. 311, 17 pages), Lombard,
Lane, and Kent are all on a train to Central City. Along with them is
Jamie--Steve's nephew (Clark met the boy in issue 267). Lois is
unreceptive to Lombard's advances (as Lois and Clark have split, the
retired quarterback sees an open field and makes a pass). The three
reporters are travelling to a journalists' conference outside Central
City, but Lois also plans to make CC her new home.

At their hotel--a ski retreat outside the city--Jamie finds a stray
dog. Meanwhile a mysterious figure shows up on the roof of the hotel and
skiers are getting sick with an unexplained illness that leaves grey
blotches on their bodies (this was around the time back in the seventies
when Legionnaires' Disease was in the news, and in this fiction the plague
is called "journalists' disease"). As Superman flies into action to save
two stricken skiers from falling to their deaths from the ski-lift,
another hero, a scarlet blur, speeds to the rescue. It's The Flash! After
the two fast friends have done the hero bit, Lois corners the Central City
Cyclone for an interview, when another reporter at the conference spots
the infamous Ms. Lane--Iris West Allen--and she gives Lois a tongue
lashing: "...You're looking forward to getting into as much trouble here
as you did in Metropolis...so that The Flash can save you every time--just
like Superman used to?...I wouldn't count on it...rumor has it The Flash
is a married man! Just as rumor has it that you're some kind of
'super-hero groupie'--"

At that moment, on the roof of the hotel, the Metropolis Marvel spots
the mysterious figure and reveals him to be Nam-Ek! (Remember him?)
Superman believes the immortal Kryptonian is the source of the plague and
the fight is on. Before The Flash can do anything to intervene, he's sent
into orbit by Nam-Ek's fist. As the super-fight travels the world to the
West Indies, Superman uproots a volcano and pours its lava on the
rondor-horned immortal. But then there is no trace of Nam-Ek and Superman
realizes that there were fragments of Kryptonite in the lava--which must
have disintegrated Nam-Ek!

Superman has committed murder. He has transgressed his oath, and now
there is one thing left to do in keeping with his vow never to take a
life, he must now cease to be Superman. But as he returns to the hotel in
the guise of Clark Kent, determined in his resolve to hang up the cape,
Lois falls to the floor stricken by the deadly plague. And that's where
311 ends.

Bob Oksner's last turn inking a Swan story was in 306 (Blaisdell stuck
around inking Swan over in Action for some more months, but then he
also was gone), and after that the search was on for a new permanent
inker. Whether anyone was ever found to adequately fill the place of
Oksner, Anderson, or even George Klein for that matter, is a topic of
heated debate, which I'll not get bogged down in at this moment. When
Garcia Lopez pencilled issues 307 to 309, a "new" inker came on
board--Frank Springer. Springer was an old pro (both as penciller and
inker). As I recall, around this time a new Spider-Man newspaper strip had
started up. Stan Lee wrote it and Springer inked it, while I'm guessing
Romita pencilled it (although honestly I'm not sure who the penciller
was). It was very soap-opera. Very Mary Worth. Lee's Spider-Man had always
been a soap opera, but this strip really worked the melodrama. Springer's
inks suited that style. On Garcia Lopez, Springer wasn't so bad, but with
this issue of Superman, 311, Springer was inking Swan and there was
something about the art that was just false.

However, Springer continued as inker in 312 ("Today the City...Tomorrow
the World" 17 pages), where we find Superman struggling to contain the
deadly journalists' disease (which could become a wide-spread pandemic).
Linda Danvers happens to also be at the journalists' conference, and as
Supergirl she confers with her overwrought cousin (allowing for flashbacks
of the previous issue). The cousins repair to the JLA satellite, where
Green Lantern has rescued an unconscious Flash from his earthly orbit, but
GL was delayed in performing his rescue because Superman's emergency
transmission was garbled by an unknown teleportation beam, sent from high
in space to the West Indies. The West Indies! So maybe Nam-Ek didn't
disintegrate afterall, but was teleported away by a mysterious confederate
in outer space!

Soon enough the cousins from Krypton are breaking into a space compound
of Amalak, the Kryptonian Killer! Fighting both Amalak and Nam-Ek,
Superman takes the fight with Nam-Ek outside into space, while Supergirl
battles Amalak. But he's not the old space pirate he used to be. Indeed
Amalak's body and his eyes have a green glow (not to mention his
dishevelled appearance) and he's able to create a green energy wraith
composed of electrical impulses from his brain (a trick he leaned while
taking part in e.s.p. experiments in intergalactic prison). Subdued by the
electric wraith, Supergirl wonders how Amalak got hung up on this vendetta
against all Kryptonians--last thing she knew he was just a space pirate.

Meanwhile Superman has imprisoned Nam-Ek in a quartz case that filters
out yellow sun radiation. Arriving back at the Amalak space compound,
Supes finds his cousin being held at star cannon gunpoint by the
Kryptonian Killer, and Kal-El doesn't stick around to play hero for his
cuz, but takes Nam-Ek back to Earth where hopefully the powers of the
healing horn will revive the ailing journalists (including Lois).

It was the dog. It wasn't Nam-Ek it was the dog. The dog was the
source of the disease that infected the journalists, including Lois.

In his quartz prison, Nam-Ek is set down in the make-shift quarantine
room at the ski retreat, where his horn will radiate its healing effects
to cure the afflicted (this is Superman's hope). But Supes as Clark soon
tumbles to the fact that the dog is really an alien creature.

The creature takes many forms--a stray dog, an impersonation of
Supergirl, and a wierd seventies style alien with orange skin. None of
these are real version of the creature--although the orange skinned alien
allows Dillin and Adams to do one of those seventies style covers for
313--all with a purple background on the cover (ah if only Carmine had
still been publisher to see this, he would have been proud). I'm sure that
purple cover sold a lot of copies.

We don't get the real scoop on this infectious alien until the next
ish, in 314.

Jamie impotently harangues Superman, pleading with him not to kill his
dog (this scene plays out on that purple cover of 313, at the end of 313,
and at the beginning of 314)--Jamie doesn't see the
Dillin/Adams/Swan/Adkins orange alien version of his adopted pet, just the
cute pup. But then Jamie also falls unconscious, his skin a mass of grey
blotches as the disease takes effect at last. For it is anger and
excitement that triggers the illness.

In revery and in conversation with Steve Lombard, the Man of Steel
gives the inside skinny on the orange creature. The infectious
alien--called Jevik--was brought to Earth by Amalak who knew that it would
infect the humans.

In its actual form, Jevik looks a rather docile little
creature--cartoonish bug-eyed beast with an elongated snout. Jevik is one
of the Klynn. In their living form, the Klynn are 30 times larger,
and function like most carbon-based life-forms. But when they die, they
shrink and continue to exist though in fact dead. So Superman has no
qualms about destroying the shrunken Jevik as it isn't really alive,
afterall.

But just then, from a secret hiding place--Amalak blows on a whistle
like device that releases musical vibrations causing Jevik to increase by
30 times its size. Thus the beast really is alive, afterall. And Superman
can't kill it, given his oath.

Jevik wreaks havoc on a local hamburger franchise, and Superman berates
the animal with the golden arches. Then he uses the same arches to hog-tie
the orange creature. But the journalists' disease hasn't been arrested.
The panic in the city will cause it to spread to a point where it will
become unmanageable (for as patients are cured, others waiting for
treatment will die).

Thus the Metropolis Marvel flies to the JLA satellite to get some
special equipment, only to discover that's where Amalak is hiding out.
Amalak tries to use his wierd whistle on the Man of Might, but can't stop
Superman's punishing blows. As Superman closes his eyes to resist the
effects of Amalak's psychic assault, one of his errant blows happens to
hit the Gamma-Gong of Kanjar Ro (on display in the JLA's satellite
HQ)--and the alien bell paralyzes Amalak.

The Man of Tomorrow then follows through on his mission to save Central
City from a potential pandemic and seeds the clouds with a tranquilizer.

Returning to the satellite, Superman finds the Kryptonian Killer at
death's door. While the Last Son of Krypton was away on his mission,
Amalak recovered enough to train an alien death-ray on himself (he had
hoped Superman would think his death was the result of the Gamma Gong, and
thus blaming himself the Man of Steel would be haunted by guilt over
Amalak's death--but the Man of Tomorrow isn't so easily fooled).

"Thus--in bitterness--Amalak dies!"

GL, Flash, and Supergirl join Superman--Supergirl is none the worse for
all Amalak's attempts to kill her. Supergirl promises to take care of
Amalak's body while Superman goes Earthside to see Lois.

But before I get to that last page, allow me to elaborate on another
matter.

Certain issues are left unresolved in this arc.

1. being how Superman knows so much about Nam-Ek (this question was
raised by Supergirl in the original back-up story, in 282) & 2. being
how Amalak became the Kryptonian Killer (again Supergirl raises questions
about this herself in 312).

It doesn't seem that Pesky Pasko would introduce these complications
and raise questions about them through Supergirl unless he had a prepared
solution for both.

In 316's lettercolumn, Beth Montelone asks why Amalak was so altered in
appearance and behaviour--and ENB answers her thus: "...As for Amalak,
Marty had it all figured out from the first--but then didn't have room to
put it in--after four issues, yet! But if he can figure out a way to bring
Amalak back to life, he promises to clear it all up!"

So Marty had planned an explanation but then was caught short with not
enough room for it.

I have my own theory of how this might have played out. It ties in with
Superman knowing about Nam-Ek. A hint is provided when Amalak states in
312: "Krypton destroyed my home-world! I will have vengeance upon it!
Every survivor of its destruction--Superman, Supergirl, the bottle-city of
Kandor--all of them will die at my hands!"

And it ties in with why there's so much Kryptonite appearing again on
Earth--when it should be iron. The rest of the Kryptonite in the universe
was supposed to be gathered together to form Krypton 2, in orbit around
the old red sun.

But maybe I'll let that hang for awhile and get on with the last page
of 314...

>sigh< quite a moving scene (and that's a big understatement--)

CAPTION: Presently, Clark Kent visits the infirmary...

CLARK (thought): My friends--Jamie Lombard...Lola Barnett...my darling
Lois--recovered!...Thanks to the healing ray from Nam-Ek's horn! I'll
have to figure out what to do about him... but that can
wait...(speaking): Lois, darling--thank God you're alive! I came so
close to losing you...I won't lose you again! I won't let you move
away from Metropolis now!

LOIS: Forget about that, Clark...I have! My brush with death made
me realize I love my life the way it is!

CLARK: And what about me? Can you love me, too? Please, Lois...forget
Superman...Marry me!

CAPTION (at the bottom of this panel): Lois... Lois! Superman is
proposing to you! --But must you make him say it? This is it--the moment
you've dreamed of for years! Don't spoil it!

(next panel shows the grim face of CK) CAPTION: And you, Clark! Forget
that the timing is all wrong now...forget that you shouldn't reveal your
secret to Lois--not here--not like this! Forget all that--Just do
it!But you can't!--can you--?

(next panel shows a sad Clark) CAPTION: No...and though you wish it
could be otherwise..though for the first time you can remember, your heart
beats wildly in your chest...you say what you must...

CLARK: I...I'm sorry, Lois...I...can't tell you that...

(final panel shows Lois in the foreground looking away with one tear,
while Clark's back is to her as he heads for the door in the background)
LOIS (thought): Of course you can't, Clark...and now I finally know the
truth!You can't tell me you're Superman...Because it isn't true!

CAPTION (at the bottom of this panel): So close they've come, these
people who love each other...and now they're so very far apart!

end CAPTION: But let us leave them now--in their silence and
sadness...for we can give no comfort in the sorrow of a dream denied...

posted August 14,
2002 09:08 AM
I remember feeling let down when I first read this. It seems like Lois
Lane suddenly regresses 10 years in this scene, back to the shrewish,
Superman-chasing caricature of the worst sixties stories.

You could interpret her reaction to mean that her entire romance with
Clark had an ulterior motive, namely that she still suspected all along
he's Superman, so she pursued him on that basis alone, and then drops him
like a ton of bricks when he refuses to confess it.

The Lois of 1977 deserved better treatment - and I think we readers did
too.

Maybe I'm being too kind to Marty, but I still suspect this was driven
by meddling from above (Schwartz? Warner Bros.?) who were committing major
$ to the Superman movie, and didn't want the comic book to depart too much
from the established Clark/Lois/Superman love triangle.

posted August 14,
2002 02:38 PM
At the moment I'm pressed for time so I can't give a fuller response,
Osgood, but I have to part company with you on this issue.

I can understand how in other circumstances I might feel as you did,
and I accept some of the probable facts as you've stated them, but my
reaction when I first read this scene was very different from yours.

I can't think how Lois or the readers could have deserved any
better--given the circumstances--than what Martin Pasko gave them.

This is one of the best scenes in a comic book I've yet to read. It
affects me still. I really was choked up at the end of my last post. That
scene is real for me.

posted August 14,
2002 03:18 PM
Well - I should clarify that while I had my reservations re: Lois'
reaction, I do agree it is a moving and memorable scene.

In fact, in a term paper I wrote in 1982 on comic books, I excerpted
about 20 or so pages from various comics over the years, including
Deadman, GL/GA, the Walt Simonson Manhunter, etc. The last one I included
was the final page of this story.

Despite his fairly long run, at a time when Superman was very prominent
in the public eye, Pasko is often overlooked.

And you managed to cover a lot of bases I'd been meaning to get to. One
of these days I'll find the time to write up some of the thoughts I've had
brewing...

Pasko was an extremely intricate plotter. He grew up on the densely
plotted, two or three story-per-issue comics of the Silver Age, and his
specialty as a letterhack was picking apart these stories in excruciating
detail and reserving his rare praise only for the best. You might say he
was like one of thos eteachers who refuses to even consider grading on the
curve. So he would have to be an intricate plotter himself.

Sometimes his plots were TOO dense. In the Bronze Age, they no longer
had to be confined to five, ten or even twenty pages and could spill over
from issue to issue, so Pasko took advantage of this. He could write a
concise little back-up story like the "Private Life" features and do so
very well, but when he was allowed to expand, I think he often went a
little overboard. Compare the Morgan Edge "coming out" tale, or the
anniversary origin special in ACTION COMICS #500, where he necessarily had
to confine himself to a certain amount of space, to the SUPERMAN
multi-parters. The shorter tales have excellent moments of pure
characterization, while in the longer ones the characterization sometimes
seems to suffer at the expense of plot. Bates or Maggin would use a
"MacGuffin", as Hitchcock called it, a central gimmick for the story to
orbit around, with characterization added through the dialogue. Pasko
would come up with a central gimmick that radiated other gimmicks outward,
and thre characters often had to use up most of their dialogue in
exposition. In the Weisinger days, characters usually sounded like robots,
talking AT each other rather than to each other (really, talking AT the
reader)and constantly explaining things in excruciating detail. In Pasko,
this tendency returns.But instead of the Weisinger dialogue, which assumes
the reader is a dummy and has to be told things, Pasko seems more
interested in showing the readers how clever PASKO is. His plots become so
complicated that the villains spend most of the time explaining what their
scheme is, Superman spends most of his time talking to himself or others
about what their scheme is, Superman's friends talk among themselves about
how Superman is coping with the scheme, Superman explains how he figured
out and beat the scheme, etc. .Bates and Maggin and even Conway and Wein
followed this model, too, but they almost ALWAYS seemed to be more
interested in the characterization (well, maybe not Bates) than showing
off their plotting skills, and they were never as "in your face" about it
as Pasko.

I know you'll disagree vehemently with me on this, India, but I think
this tendency often strips all the genuine emotion out of Pasko's stories.

Pasko was great, for example, at coming up with MOTIVATIONS for his
villains to be so evil; but the villains usually describe their
motivations out loud, in such clinical, dispassionate detail, that they
seem to be reading off a teleprompter instead of baring their souls and
seeking a little Sympathy for the Devil.

Similarly, in that Lois / Clark "breakup" scene from #314, I don't get
choked up at all, despite the effect it had on you. The two sound like
lawyers stating their cases to me, instead of lovers being torn apart. One
panel of tears being shed can't break through all that eloquent (TOO
eloquent for the situation) description of their feelings. It's as if
Pasko is merely using the characters as mouthpieces to describe what HE
(or Schwartz, or whoever chose the breakup) feels their relationship has
come to.

(Of course, in the interests of full disclosure, I have never found
much appeal in the Superman-Lois romance,especially the Clark-Lois aspect.
Sheer, unmitigated heresy, I know. But... except for that brief period in
the mid-Forties when they had a terrific kind of "1930s Grant-and-Hepburn
/ Russell screwball comedy" chemistry going on, or in some of the
Schaffenberger Lois stories, especially the Mr.and Mrs. Superman
toned-down reprisal of the Forties stuff... I just never bought the "meant
for each other" crap. In every other era, I either saw Lois as an annoying
you-know-what, or the writers trying to force-feed me a caring,
compassionate, "spunky" Lois as a candidate for sainthood. Like Lou Grant,
"I hate spunk". But that's a road I don't particularly want to go down on
this thread...I just mentioned it so you could know my bias.)

Anyway, wasn't I talking about Martin Pasko? Ah,yes. Despite all this,
I do think his Superman run was damn good! I just think it benefited from
the occasional reining in. As I said, he COULD write great
characterization when the plot didn't tend to overwhelm it. And he WAS a
damn good plotter. So there.

We've seen his tendency to keep bringing up all these intriguing things
only to back off again, or sputter to an unsatisfying conclusion:

In the Morgan Edge "origin", Pasko hit a home run, and the idea seemed
popular with the fans... yet Mrs. Edelstein never appeared again, and Edge
mostly seemed to ignore his humble origins from then on, despite the
public revelation. There was a SUPERMAN FAMILY story about his old
childhood rival, but I can't think of much else to show Edge had really
learned anything.

(Actually, I wonder if Pasko was inspired at all in his redefinition of
Edge by... don't laugh... F. Scott Fitzgerald's THE GREAT GATSBY. Gatsby,
as I dimly recall, began life as Gatz, and spent time as both sailor and
gambler accumulating his fortune and putting on the false front he
presents to Nick Carraway. But Pasko never really gives Edge his
"Daisy"... his reason for the quest. He's looking for respect, but what
else? Wouldn'tit be cool if he did it all to one day win the heart of Lola
Barnett... if she was the green light he stared out at in the darkness
every night from his penthouse? Well, maybe not.

And for the record, Jack Kirby created Edge to be pretty much what he
was in those early JIMMY OLSENs... a heartless rat. It was Bridwell and
Robert Kanigher who decided, in LOIS LANE, to introduce a more sympathetic
Edge to the cast, and dismiss the original as a clone. Kirby based Edge on
CBS executive James Aubrey, the so-called "Smiling Cobra" of broadcasting,
and (visually) on actor Kevin McCarthy... cf. THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR
#32)

Then, in the Bizarro-Toyman two-parter, Pasko restores them to their
original sense of macabre menace. The scene where Toyman casually flings a
razor-sharp frisbee to slice open the security guard's throat is genuinely
chilling. Here he has the potential to become a villain as crazy/dangerous
as the Joker or as crazy/tragic as Two-Face. Yet the next time Pasko
writes them, they're back to their goofy,ineffectual selves. It must have
been by choice, since the letter columns wildly praised their return to
their roots. What was he thinking? Did he regret reinjecting some bite to
the "wacky" villains, or did he feel it was merely a creative dead end? I
guess we'll never know.

Then there's the whole Amalak mess. As much as I enjoy those issues
(especially the electro-surrogate, and the bits with Flash and Iris, and
Swan drawing Supergirl in her hot pants-era costume)it HURTS to think
about them too much. I don't buy Superman's "out" in fighting Jevvik...
living is living,and dead is dead. He's sentient, and animated, and
capable of RETURNING to a living state... then he's ALIVE, darn it. And
how DID Supes know about Nam-Ek? And what WAS the deal with Amalak taking
on the personality of the space-explorer he'd duped into hating all
Kryptonians way back in issue #195's classic Jim Shooter story? It was the
young explorer's planet that was destroyed by Krypton's explosion,not
Amalak's... or did the explosion of Krypton II (which Pasko revealed in
issue #323) DESTROY AMALAK'S PLANET TOO? Holy Too Much Coincidence! Or did
they just merge minds in that ESP experiment? Pesky's not doing his job if
he leaves me wondering about this! Sure, Schwartz probably put the brakes
on and told him four issues, enough was enough, wrap it up NOW... but it
was Pasko who let that much plot build up to the point it had nowhere to
go. Twenty-five years later and we'll never find out now!

Still, as I said, I LIKE Pasko's stories... and I probably sound a bit
like the famously hard-to-please Pesky One myself here, in his letterhack
days.

There are worse people to be compared to.

*******

BTW India, I'll be interested to see your comments when you get up to
SUPERMAN #330, near the end of Pasko's run.

After all, it not only features a "New Look" at a Schwartz-era BATMAN
villain, of all things, it reveals a plot twist that is simultaneously one
of the most ingenious and most ill-conceived in the entire Superman canon.

But it was all worth it to see Superman donning his Clark Kent specs to
look at himself in the mirror, and uttering those immortal lines:

"Now that I stop to THINK about it... THAT'S THE DUMBEST DISGUISE I'VE
EVER SEEN! What am I supposed to LOOK like? A TOTALLY DIFFERENT PERSON?
Uh-UNH! SUPERMAN WEARING GLASSES is what I LOOK like!"

posted August 14,
2002 07:44 PM
"Ingenious and ill-conceived" exactly my sentiments--but that will have to
wait for some time, until I get round to the seventh or ninth part of my
progress reports.

And yes the plots are very dense. It's maddening trying to post on
these extended plots--what do I mention? what do I leave out? I have to
sit and think trying to figure what really is the storyline here. It's a
mindbender.

I think Marty took some pride in all this. In the upcoming Metallo
multi-parter (Part III, which I should get around to in a day or so), he
has Curt draw a jigsaw puzzle, with all the pieces being part of the
sprawling storyline he's constructed.

Op, your comments actually made me think of Howard Hawks (the brilliant
director of such greats as "Only Angels Have Wings," "I was a Male
Warbride," "Bringing up Baby," "The Big Sleep," "To Have and To Have Not,"
"Man's Favorite Sport," "Rio Bravo," and many more). "The Big Sleep" is a
notoriously confusing movie based on a notoriously confusing book. And
other Hawks movies arise to similar confusion. "His Girl Friday"
complicates the Ben Hecht story by having Hildie be a woman, and then
further having the stars talk over each other at high speed.

If Pasko was going to fit in his Amalak explanation, it would have been
quite complex, I think. I figure issue 313 was where this was supposed to
happen--the story as it is is kinda light in that one. Maybe Pasko would
have dropped the Jevik stuff (which makes me think of the generational
cycle of a jellyfish), and would have dealt with Amalak--Amalak stands
there with his star cannon, going off at the mouth to Supergirl... Which
would have left hardly any room for Superman or super-heroic action.

What drives the last page of 314 is the captions. Marty is speaking as
a fan of Siegel, Hamilton, Binder, Dorfman, Shooter, Bates, O'Neil, and
Maggin. He speaks for us, with our intimate knowledge of these characters.
We know the impossible ****ed-up nature of their inter-relationship, which
stands as some kind of metaphor for all our own ****ed-up romantic
endeavours. We want the one outcome, but we are resigned to the only
outcome that is possible under the circumstances.

Pasko had a choice. Maggin and Bates introduce the Clark/Lois
passionate affair, but they also put it away. Conway could have avoided
using it, but instead heated things up again. Pasko could have put aside
this storyline (with just one balloon of dialogue) or he could have
continued to heat it up endlessly with no real conclusion. Instead he
posed the question to himself, "what is the conclusion of this storyline?"
He came up with the answer--Clark has to ask Lois to marry him. But Marty
also had to know that that marriage was impossible. Only a few dreamy eyed
comic book readers at the time actually believed Clark could marry Lois.
Marrying Lois would have killed the Superman comics. So Pasko then asked
himself why Lois wouldn't marry Clark.

Lois is a complex mix of characteristics. Early seventies writers tried
to deny Lois Lane's past. But Pasko is a writer who integrates all the
different concepts into hopefully one fusion of them all. So his Lois is
true to her nature. And what she asks of Clark--while an aspect of her own
self-destructive impulses--is not really so wrong. She demands truth from
a man who is going to marry her. And if he can't be honest, then why is he
wanting her to marry him?

Really down deep Lois knows that Clark is Superman--she just needs to
hear him say it, as a proof of his love. Down deep Clark knows she knows.
But when push comes to shove, he can't admit the truth of things and
escapes back into the lie. Lois still knows the real truth, but she has to
now accept the only truth that is allowed in this situation. The truth has
to be that Clark isn't Superman--because if the real truth is allowed,
then that means Superman doesn't love her enough to sacrifice everything
and break down and be honest for once. Either Clark isn't Superman, or
Superman doesn't love her. She chooses to hold to the fiction that
Superman loves her, and therefore Clark isn't Superman. But we all know
what's really true.

I should also mention around this time they were giving credits for
colorists and letterers. Color credits are given in all of the above, and
Jerry Serpe did them all. Lettering credits are given for issue 316 onward
and Ben Oda is named for all.

I remember in the early seventies there was something I couldn't quite
figure out about Morgan Edge that just made me cringe. Continental Op's
comment that Kevin McCarthy was the visual model for Edge turned the light
bulb on above my head. Because (with all apologies to McCarthy and his
family) there's always been something about McCarthy that made me cringe.
My sister is even worse--Kevin McCarthy in any movie or TV show is more
than she can stand.

So when Edge was re-imagined as Morris Edelstein, I think that went
some distance in softening his image for me. It wasn't like nails on a
chalkboard for me anymore. Even though his Edeltstein past was never
really mentioned after that, I remembered it and that was good enough to
make me kinda like the smiling cobra.

Issue 315 sees Silverstone again under pressure from Tanner to conjure
up the "Avenger of the Airwaves" for his TV comeback (Tanner doesn't
realize that he was ever Blackrock). This time Silverstone switches the
TV-antenna weapon, that Blackrock originally used, for an obsidian picture
tube, which looks like a black rock. And Silverstone casts Tanner's
nephew, Les Vegas, in the part. Vegas--an obvious Chevy Chase stand-in--is
a featured performer on the "Friday Night Revue"--a big hit for UBC.

After having used Nam-Ek to cure everyone in Central City, and after
having sent Nam-Ek into the Phantom Zone, Superman discovers that Skull
agents are in the West Indies recovering green K from the cooling magma
that he had used on Nam-Ek. Once he has subdued the trio of agents and
bagged them in his cape, Superman abruptly meets up with Blackrock. First
using his vision powers to determine that Sam Tanner is still at his UBC
office, Supes next tries x-ray vision on Blackrock himself.

The x-rays can't penetrate the mask, but they do happen to travel
through the blackrock obsidian picture tube, causing some kind of delayed
mind transference for the two costumed adversaries.

Meanwhile other plots are going on. Edge plans to pair up Kent with a
newswoman as co-anchor on the channel 8 broadcasts--just like ABC did with
Barbara Walters and Harry Reasoner. "It isn't...Lola Barnett is it?" Clark
asks timidly. And Edge blows up at him--"I've told you a hundred times
never to mention that no-good back-stabber to me again!!" [I wonder if
maybe there really wasn't some secret sexual tension between Morgan and
Lola.]

At the same time, Lola is that week's celebrity host of the "Friday
Night Revue," but when Vegas puts on a Clark Kent mask to do the "Evening
New Update" bit on "Friday Night," he suddenly becomes just as boring as
the real Kent. While Clark in his apartment with a visiting Jonathan Ross
(that kid again!) starts doing Vegas schtick--falling down like Gerald
Ford.

Then Vegas rips open his suit to reveal a Superman costume underneath,
but as he watches the TV Jon convinces Clark as Vegas/Blackrock to go
after his enemy Superman (the actual Vegas/Blackrock) at the UBC TV
studio. So the mind-switched pair fight it out, until the real Superman
overcomes Blackrock/Vegas and Les Vegas ends up not remembering any of it.

But on the last page, Superman shows up at STAR answering a call from
Dr. Klyburn who has been examining the corpses of the Skull agents he
subdued. Corpses because their hearts have been replaced with seeming
lumps of Kryptonite!

Actually not really Kryptonite, but rocks made to look like
Kryptonite--as we discover in 316. Meanwhile at the morgue, Metallo's body
is gone. Now, at the Metropolis Museum of Natural History, where a
specimen of newly found green K is on display, Superman confronts the
metal-masked Metallo in the act of steeling the rock. The Man of Tomorrow
chases after the robotic rogue as he escapes on his sky-sled, into the
Metropolis Bay Tunnel. But as a pedestrian cop is pushed into traffic by
Metallo, Superman must give up the chase.

Next, at WGBS, another scene between Edge and Kent, as the boss informs
Clark that he's no longer associate producer of the 6 o'clock news and
introduces the anchorman to the new a.p.--Martin Korda. Then, in the
hallway, Kent and Korda meet Lois Lane, newly arrived from Central
City--and as they get on the elevator, Korda misses the car and the two
ex-lovers are left alone. Lois wants to talk, but Clark is in no mood--and
spotting Metallo with his x-ray vision, Kent does one of his disappearing
acts on Lois, again.

Which brings us to the big conclusion of 316, in the caves of State
Caverns. As Superman tries to stop Metallo from absconding with a bag of
souvenir rocks, the bag of loot rips opens and gives Supes a face full of
deadly green K. The chase continues, as the weakened Man of Steel pursues
his fearsome foe through the caverns. Then Supes uses his heat vision to
break off a stalactite which falls and pierces Metallo's Kryptonite heart.

But as the Kryptonite weary Man of Tomorrow turns his back on the
villain, Metallo busts the stalactite over Superman's head, knocking him
prone in the Kryptonite dust.

317--This has one of those Neal Adams covers. You know the kind I mean.
The kind you remember years after, even if you don't remember the story.
One of those macho Adams covers that virtually scream out at you from the
comic rack.

It shows a muscle flexing Superman, his skin all green, with black
energy lines radiating out from him. In green balloons he's saying: "In
seconds the Kryptonite implanted in my body will kill me......But
before I die...I'm taking you with me!!"

At the story's beginning, Metallo stands over the prostrate Superman,
holding his fist in the air in grand super-villain style, proclaiming that
he will take Superman's invulnerable heart and put it in his robotic
body--and then he will be IMMORTAL.

This is the comic with the jigsaw puzzle pieces (on pages 3 & 4),
such as...Skull, the Skull agents with green rock hearts, Metallo's lead
mask concealing a new secret identity, a newspaper announcing that Dr.
Albert Michaels has vanished, a top secret experimental device that
vanished with Michaels, the Metropolis Bay Tunnel, State Caverns, and lots
of question marks.

Somewhere in a Metropolis hotel, his face in shadow, Metallo muses over
his grand scheme. Knowing that Michaels was the one responsible for
changing him from Roger Corben into a metallic freak, Metallo stole
Michaels' new top secret device and left a message for the Dr. threatening
his life--and that's when Michaels skipped town. The device is a
transmaterializing cannon that allows Corben to exchange real hearts for
green rocks.

While Metallo has gone to his hotel lair for the transmaterializing
device, Superman has dragged his body into an underground stream to escape
the deadly Green K ravaging his body. Then Supes tracks down two Skull
agents driving an armoured car, but must leave them to pursue an
anti-matter missile, and when he returns he finds their corpses--their
hearts exchanged for green rock. Inside the armoured car: a cache of green
K ingots!

Metallo returns to the cave only to find Superman gone. Then as morning
dawns on a new day, Clark encounters his new associate producer, Martin
Korda (who sort of looks like Tony Stark). Then later while talking with
Lois about her investigations into Skull (over in Superman Family
no. 184), everything comes together for Clark and he breaks into Korda's
office (which used to be Clark's office), finding books in Korda's desk
drawer--Up, Up and Away: The Biography of Superman by Lois Lane,
The History of Heart Transplants, and Experimental
Cybernetics.

Meanwhile, the last three surviving Skull agents are gathered in their
secret HQ around their skull shaped desk, when Metallo comes to call.
Before the robotic rogue can follow through on his efforts to kill them,
Superman breaks up the party, then Metallo trains his transmaterializing
device on Superman's heart, exchanging green K for a Kryptonian heart, and
Superman crumbles to the floor his skin now green, just as Lois walks in.

Metallo knocks out two of the remaining Skull agents, but then himself
falls to the floor. And as Lois kneels over the lifeless body of Superman,
the Metropolis Marvel sits up and informs her that it was all just an
elaborate ruse. At superspeed he held up a lead canister containing the
heart of a deceased Kandorian, thus that heart was exchanged for the green
K--which is now in the canister. And Superman figured out that Metallo
tended to operate at early morning hours (when few radio signals are in
the air) or in underground areas that jam radio signals. So he arranged
for police radio signals to barrage the robotic rogue incapacitating
Metallo.

Just then Dr. Michaels unmasks himself as the last remaining Skull
agent and uses the transmaterializing device to transport himself from the
presence of Superman...

quote:
Originally posted by garythebari:All I know about Superman is
from the 1960s and earlier, or post-crisis. I don't believe I have ever
seen a Superman comic book from the 70s, much less read one. So when it
comes to Superman in the 70s and early 80s I have no idea what I'm
talking about. (Space provided here for cheap shots.)

Some posters have told me there was a good continuity going on in
that period of time, but I have not been able to find any 70s stuff even
at the largest comics store in our area. 60s yes, 70s no. Would anyone
care to fill me in on the events, the chronology, the major Superman
adventures in the 70s? (I posted something like this for the 1986
through 2000 era a while back. If anyone read it, that's the kind of
thing I'm looking for.)

I know there was a while that Clark and Lana worked at a TV station,
but that's about it.

Thanks.

...In the last four panels of 317, at a WGBS staff meeting with Clark
Kent in attendance, Edge introduces the new find for the WGBS news,
Clark's new co-anchor, Lana Lang!

In flashback to the end of this staff meeting, at the opening of issue
318, Clark and Lana have a lively dialogue, talking of old times and
Smallville and her decision to come back from Europe and accept the new
GBS assignment. Lana's lingo is much affected, reflecting all those years
on the continent I guess.

But the Smallville duo don't have very much time to catch up before
Superman is called away by an urgent message from Prof. Milius of the
Olympus Observatory, and soon the Cosmic Kryptonian is travelling across
the solar system and into a hole in space.

The rest of the story that unfolds puts me in mind of "The Starry-Eyed
Siren of Space" (issue 243, Oct. '71, by Bates and Swanderson) as Superman
discovers an odd ship wrecked on a desolate planet (the space-ship looks
like an oceanic vessel--something I kind of like, given my passion for
ERB's John Carter of Mars in which Barsoomians navigate similar such
vessels across the skies of the red planet).

It's a wierd science tale (also, like "Starry-Eyed..." it seems
inspired by old episodes of Star Trek--eg. "The Cage), in which a
pirate astronaut, Pegleg Portia, ended up shipwrecked on a planet where
the dominant lifeform are dogs. A pack of these dogs adopted her--instead
of eating her as they should have done--and were shunned by the rest of
their clan. They left the dog planet, and successive generations of dogs
continued to keep her as their charge as they travelled through space on
the ship.

Near the end of the story, Superman returns Portia to her barren
homeplanet, where her people died-out centuries ago. Portia herself should
have died except for being kept alive and young by the dogs. The Man of
Steel wants to keep Portia alive instead of allowing her to have the death
she desires. But the psychic dogs have come to understand the truth, that
their care for Portia is enslavement and out of love they wish for her to
have her passing.

Superman remembers words his father, Jonathan Kent, spoke to him when
he was Superboy, reminding him that he is just a man, not a god. It is not
for him to choose between life or death--only the All Mighty can make that
decision.

And at the story's end the dogs are gathered at Portia's grave, baying
their mourning howls to the moon.

Before I progress with the Superman comics, I thought I'd flash
around in time for a bit to cover some other Pasko projects that tie-in
with his run on Superman (although some might seem fairly
irrelevant).

As I said in part I, Pasko seemed to pair up with other writers on
different projects. He worked on the '76 JLA/JSA (and Fawcett) crossover
with E.N.B. And then for '77 he was teamed up with Paul Levitz for that
summer's JLA/JSA crossover which brought the Legion into the annual
event--at a time when JLofA was a double-sized monthly.

As an addendum to his All-Star Companion (published by
TwoMorrows), Roy Thomas gave a run down of all the JLA/JSA crossovers in
Alter-Ego, v. 3, no. 7. Included in this were blurbs--mostly short
interviews--on all the writers who worked on the crossovers. A couple of
the writers had passed away, of course (E.N.B. and orginal writer Gardner
Fox), but the rest of the living writers were all contacted. And all
responded and agreed to be interviewed except for two--Martin Pasko and
Cary Bates--neither of these two even responded to Roy Thomas.

For Fox and Bridwell, Thomas relied on surviving interviews--for ENB he
used part of an interview from Amazing World of DC Comics no. 16
(April '78). He also included an excerpt from AWODCC 14 (March '77)
on Marty: "Pasko was assigned story premises by Julius Schwartz to use as
springboards, and hence had a problem-solving approach to the
scripts...[He] also wrote the dialogue for the JLA-JSA team-up in
JLA # 135 - 137 over E. Nelson Bridwell's plot and breakdowns in a
story that attempted to bridge the gap between the straight heroes of the
JLA and the more humorous heroes of the Marvel Family."

For the Legion crossover, Roy Thomas was able to get an e-mail from the
now publisher of DC Comics, Paul Levitz:

quote:At the time of JLA # 147 - 148, I was writing both
All-Star Comics with the JSA and The Legion of
Super-Heroes, so I suppose I was a logical candidate to work on the
crossover. I wasn't one of Julie's regular writers, though. At the time
I hadn't sold him any scripts (or probably even tried, since I was
having a tough enough time keeping up with all the deadlines I had
overcommitted myself to with other editors).

Marty Pasko was one of Julie's regulars, though, and Marty and I were
splitting an apartment in the Village at the time, so somewhere along
the way we must have decided to collaborate and talked Julie into it.

The first part of the two-parter was a fairly active collaboration.
If I go by my files, the plot outline is from my typewriter, with some
handwritten page breaks not in my handwriting. The first 13 pages of
script seem to come from my typewriter, too, but includes some notes to
Marty, so I guess he was going to second-draft or
edit-before-the-editor. For the balance of the issue, I just did the
panel breakdowns and art directions.

The second part lists in my records as a co-plot only, and I have no
written files on it, so I probably did no work at the keyboard, just
kibitzing. As I said, I was pretty overcommitted at the time, and might
have just dumped it in Marty's lap.

It looks as though I started the story around January 1977, and while
I was capable of solid writing by then (I had just finished the JSA
Origin, which remains one of my personal favorite jobs), I was doing
very uneven work overall. Fun assignments were coming my way for the
first time in my writing career, and I was grabbing too many--and
blowing a fair number, either by having to do only a part of the job,
and belatedly splitting the plot/dialogue chores, or by rushing. I've
always lumped the one JLA/JSA I got to do with these errors, and
regretted it deeply because of my love for Gardner Fox's run.

The first comic I ever bought was the beginning of the first
JLA/JSA crossover [JLA # 21, 1963], and a blow-up of that cover
still hangs in my office to remind me of the magic that comics can
have.

Around the same time as the JLA/JSA crossover, and around the same
time as a few of the issues mentioned in part III of these progress
reports, the "Superman Spectacular" (or however you want to title
it--Dollar Comic Special, DC Special Series, etc.) must have been out. The
featured story, "The Second Coming of Superman" is mentioned more fully on
page 17 of this thread. Pasko had a hand in the writing of that story,
collaborating with Cary Bates, although Bates seems to have done most of
the work.

This story which pairs up Luthor and Brainiac, has a vague sense of
where it fits in continuity. Lois does seem to care for Clark to a degree,
so it may be that the story was intended to fit somewhere before
Superman 310, although it came out on the stands well after that
issue.

The text page, however, seem to set the book in contrast to the events
of issue 314. As that text page has contributions from many Superman
worthies on the matter of whether Superman should marry Lois. It's clear
that while fans might want such a marriage, most of the pros, both young
and old, felt that this would be the kiss of doom for the Man of Steel.

Over in the lettercolumn of Superman 318, there was a two page
spread with responses from readers mostly commenting on the last page of
314. There were even two of the vital panels reproduced on the letter
page.

The insightful meditations on this matter were, if nothing else, proof
that Superman readers are some of the most intelligent and introspective
readers in the world.

Meanwhile, Pasko contributed two Superman 8 pagers for Superman
Family nos. 184 & 183. The story for 184 was cover-featured,
showing an enraged Superman threatening The Prankster as the comical
criminal puts pennies in his ears (while the other Family members stand
around in disbelief).

The actual story paired up The Prankster and The Toyman--although
Prankster is on the outside, while Toyman remains inside prison. Their
plot has Prankster pulling off bizarre stunts which don't seem like crimes
(eg. putting pennies in his ear) yet are misdemeanors in certain towns.
The aural pennies stunt is apparently a crime in Honolulu. And when
Superman tries to detain the crooked comedian, everyone around (including
a cop) starts putting pennies in their ears as well. Superman is so
enraged that he puts his fist through a brick wall.

The show of temper by Superman seems rather out of character--or maybe
Pasko was trying to make Superman more edgey, and saw Superman's greatest
vulnerability to be his emotional state (pushed to the brink by Lois). But
Pasko also seems to foul up on the character of Toyman. In the last Pasko
Toyman tale (Superman 306), Winslow Schott, having been driven to
murder by an insane vendetta against Superman, is overcome with regret
when he realizes that he was in error. Yet no such regretful Toyman
appears in this tale--rather Win Schott is quite happy as his plot unfolds
and the Prankster bates the Man of Steel.

The actual motive behind the felonious pranks is found in the prison
law books. After each misdemeanor is reported on TV, Schott finds the
legal entry for that crime. The page number and column (right column or
left column) give Toyman instructions in where to find a key buried on the
prision grounds which would open a safety deposit box on the outside.

In the following issue, 185, Pasko crafts an effective tale which
provides the first meaningful conversation between Clark and Lois since
his proposal of marriage. The pair wind up stuck inside an apartment,
waiting to interview a detained rock star, and waste away most of their
time playing gin rummy.

Lois sees no reason in blowing a good working relationship just because
they dated for a while. But though they've worked together for so long and
have dated, Lois doesn't feel they really knoe each other--so maybe it's
better that they did split up.

Just before the rock star shows up, Lois feels her cheek is wet, and
blames it on a leaky pipe. Then when finally Craig Wellman, the rock star,
does show up, the interview proceeds. And after Wellman has left, Clark
says he almost wished Lois still suspected that he was Superman, because
if she did this afternoon stuck in an apartment would prove her wrong.
Lois begs to differ, and then explains how Clark at superspeed might have
escaped her to perform various feats (most of them concerning a nearby
fire that held up Wellman from getting to the interview)--when Clark went
into the kitchen for coffee, when he ducked under the table to pick up a
card he dropped, and so on.

"So you see, just because you were cooped up in that apartment with me
for an entire hour, Clark...it doesn't necessarily prove that you aren't
Superman...even though I know you're not!" Lois Lane concludes, and then
coldy leaves Kent.

Then Clark thinks to himself, "I slipped away to switch to
Superman--and performed those super-rescues--exactly as Lois described
them...except for one thing: the 'moisture' she felt on her cheek wasn't
water from leaky pipes at all! When I returned here the last time..." [the
panel shows a flashback of Superman flying through the window and as Clark
kissing Lois, while thinking that they haven't been close lately and he
can't resist the temptation to kiss her at superspeed] "How strange--Lois
kept going on about how we don't really know each other...but she knows me
well enough to anticipate the very way I think in a moment of crisis!
Maybe she knows me better than even she realizes. Hardly any married
couples know each other that well! And this whole experience has reminded
me of how much I wish Lois and I were still a 'thing'! I wonder...maybe we
should get back together...?"